The Girl Boss Era Was Ten Years Ago. Now What?
I was recently reminded of The Girl Boss Generation and The Lean In Generation while searching for a new show to watch on Netflix. I was flipping through shows and landed on the non-renewed show, GirlBoss, which came out around 2017 and had mixed reviews on the show. The concept of the show was cited by various critics as the demise of television shows at the time.
I decided to skip watching the show, at least for now, but it did bring back memories of the heydays of the 2010s. The 2010s are officially a decade from the time period we are currently living in, but it still feels like it was yesterday when people were discussing what was the best way to climb the corporate ladder and get more women in the workplace. To be frank, these conversations are actually still happening, but things are a little bit more complexity and nuance compared to the time of ‘sheer optimism’, also known as the 2010s.
Things were simpler a decade ago. Technology was booming, jobs seemed abundant, more and more students were going to college and actually finding jobs that they liked. There were talks about having the first female president in the States. Women were founding their own startups and companies. Women were climbing the ladder like never before, paving the way for everyone coming after them. Women were also entering STEM majors in droves and were graduating in these areas with honors.
There was an optimism permeable through so many different platforms and sites where the presumption was that women finally could have it all and embrace all that life had to offer. Women also openly talked about their struggles in the corporate world through webinars, seminars and Ted Talks. Most of these conversations revolved around how they got their start and also overcame their challenges. Women talked about their salaries and how that number impacted their lives. Women shared tips, tricks, and advice about being in the working world with the younger generation. Gatekeeping for that cohort was promised to become a thing of the past.
The joy during the girl boss era was infectious. There didn’t seem to be a limit to what women could do or achieve.
Additionally, women had more control over their dating lives and the autonomy to pursue relationships, casual or not, on their terms. Dating apps like Bumble and Coffee Meets Bagel proliferate as the new way to meet your significant other and firmly put women in the driver's seat of these interactions. During that time period, I was just graduating from college and ate up all of the carefree joy that the world had to offer. I had so much expectations for the world and definitely dreamed of a world that would get increasingly better. I thought things would come easily and stay that way. The joy of what could be was contagious. It was definitely a time to be alive.
Now, however, so much has shifted. The vibes aren’t as optimistic, both domestically and abroad. Layoffs are rolling and the next big organization’s layoff announcement always feels imminent. Companies, in general, are downsizing and not hiring. People, both women and men alike, are skeptical of college. People are skeptical of the workforce. Inflation is high, and budgets are a necessity. The new word for the year is ‘poly-crisis’. The name of the game is survival, and the optimism of years past seems a bit juvenile in comparison. To make matters more complex, there has been a rise of women are opting out or being pushed out much to our collective chagrin.
Recently, in a high-profile case, Jacinda Ardern, the long-standing prime minister of New Zealand, announced that she was stepping down from her position to focus on her personal life. She cited being burned out and not having anything left to give to her job anymore. Additionally, the PM of Finland, Sanna Marin, lost her election recently. And some speculate it could be due to her image outside of the professional realm. Marin was caught under fire of ‘partying too much’ or ‘living too much’ even though she did help get the country out of a time of crisis. These examples have brought forth a new round of several think pieces on whether women can have it all and whether or not they should even try.
On social media, I have seen frequent stories of women who decided to quietly quit or outright leave their jobs.
Not only are people at the tippy top struggling, but also women who work critical positions in their everyday life. Critical positions that are also heavily women-centric, such as teaching, nursing, and social work, are all seeing shortages both domestically and across the globe. Just recently, there was a nursing strike that shut down New York City, where nurses demanded higher wages, better supervision, and better patient ratios so that they could do their job effectively.
In London, there was also a mass strike by teachers unions who were dissatisfied and fed up with low pay, no support, and not being respected by parents, staff, higher management, and the like. This unity of people in these fields not only showcases the power of workers but also the power of women working. They are not just going to take their miserable conditions and lie in them. They are willing to protest and fight for what is right, no matter how much disruption it causes. People, overall, are fed up. Women especially.
Seeing this has caused me to look inward and look back at the heydays of the 2010s. I mean, looking back to when the vibes and energy were high, it is easy to see why we all fell in love with the stereotypical girl boss type. She was fun and flighty. She was a dreamer and a doer. She was the foil to the typical masculine brilliant genius archetype that we were sold about in our youth. She was getting things done in her own way, and at her own pace.
It was easy to glorify. There are several entrepreneurs who have lived up to this hype. One is Whitney Herd, who is the co-founder of Bumble. She became a billionaire after taking her company public. As mentioned previously, Bumble is a company that focuses on putting women in charge of dating and relationships. It helped revolutionize dating, but one of the places it really revolutionized was the workplace. Bumble had almost eighty percent women working there, and at least half of people in management and higher were women or identified as women.
Then you have the girl bosses turned rogue like Elizabeth Holmes, who was once going to revolutionize the health and tech space with her technology to make it easier to inject needles, but the company became defunct because the product was not viable. And Holmes ended up fading to obscurity. You also had women-owned co-working spaces like The Wing, which promoted inclusion and diversity and offered a safe networking community for all women, though it is highly contested and debatable if the company actually achieved their goal. The Wing is no longer running. The famed co-working space glittered, but did not provide gold. Now, we have to ask ourselves how much of the girl boss era and all the listicles, podcasts, articles, and the like were just hype and not based on grounding information or reality?
One thing that gets missing from the conversation is that it is a privilege to be able to start your own company and have it succeed. Most start-ups are abandoned. For the ones that aren't, it is hard to raise capital to sustain the business or continue to reinvest in it to grow and scale. Second, it is also hard to find female investors that are willing and able to invest in your company, and those who do might come with a lot of requirements and conditions that might not be actually good for your brand. Even if you have a successful brand, you are open to criticism from peers, customers, and consumers. Women-owned businesses and enterprises often face more scrutiny, both externally and internally. And when a woman makes it to the top, there is more pressure on her not to fail and more eyes on her when she does.
For women in the middle or lower rung. Being a girl boss was never really in the cards. People in this station of life just wanted to have a good-paying job and do it as well as they could for themselves. There is no glitz and glamour for people who chose helping professions like social work, teaching, and nursing. There are no all-night parties, freebies, red carpet events, gold glasses of champagne, or whatever you might find in fields like media, marketing, and tech. Girl bosses in these fields are a myth. Most are just trying to do good, honest work, help people along the way, and get some pay for their time.
So is the much-hyped Girboss Era gone for good?
Somewhat, but a better answer would be not quite. I do think the image of the girl boss has morphed and has become more tamed and subdued. There are no longer larger-than-life characters of women living on the edge and starting Fortune 500 companies in their bedrooms. But, in general, that image has fallen out of style for the tech industry as a whole. Yes, the girl boss image has changed significantly, but it has to, especially as we live in a time of much turbulence and no easy answers or one-size-fits-all solutions. And I do think that change is much needed.
Ultimately this calls for us to retire the outdated word ‘girl boss’, and champion the women leaders and founders more who are actually making the changes that we need to see. It calls for us to promote the women who are doing the work and are committed to making the changes that are needed in society and not those who are just on the hype train for the moment.
I think there should be less emphasis on just corporate founders and more of a focus on providing a good working environment for all women working in all industries across the board. I hope that this time period gives way to a more realistic and systematic approach for how to improve conditions for working women in all sectors, even for those who are not working, working part-time, or are self-employed.
This isn’t exactly a call to action per se, though it might sound like that, but I think it is important to think critically about the leaders we want to see lead, regardless of gender. And we have to ask our leaders, our founders, and everyone in between: Are you truly ready to meet the new moment that we are in?
Because meeting the moment is going to take more than just the unlimited hype that the previous generation of girl bosses had. It is going to take strategy, proactiveness, and commitment. And that’s something that we all are going to have to get behind and promote.